


Walking in a Winter Wonderland

by tigerbright



Category: Louisa May Alcott - Little Women series
Genre: Family, Gen, Outing, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 01:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerbright/pseuds/tigerbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After finishing a new novel, Jo needs some physical activity.  Fritz and the boys send Laurie to take her for a walk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walking in a Winter Wonderland

**Author's Note:**

  * For [caladria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caladria/gifts).



Laurie opened the gate to Plumfield cautiously. Down at the college, Rob and Ted had assured him that their mother had finished her manuscript and had emerged from her vortex... nevertheless, it was wise to be careful. Twenty years without a major fight was a precious and marvelous thing, in a friendship built on trust and respect as much as memories of adolescence.

He grinned to see a woman's bootmarks leading through the snow to the garden, once populated by small boys' ideas of what garden plots should be, and tiptoed carefully toward them.

"Good morning," a quiet voice said in his ear. He groaned.

"_I_ was supposed to surprise _you_, Jo."

"Never wise, you know that." Her eyes twinkled.

He sat down on the bench, still lightly dusted with snow, and began to prop his feet on its arm; feeling cold, he thought otherwise and crossed his legs. "Your boys tell me you're out of your vortex and looking for something to do."

"And begged you to find an activity to distract me from reorganizing the house, no doubt."

"Actually, that was Fritz."

"Poor Fritz." Her eyes dared him to summon memories. His declined.

"I thought you might like a good old-fashioned tramp through the snow. I see you've already got your practical clothes on - or as practical as women's clothes get, anyway."

Jo smoothed the heavy wool of her dress, winked at Laurie, and promptly ran toward the gate. He followed, laughing.

Half an hour later found them on the edge of a favorite skating pond, considering the ice, whorled and swirled with white, yet not as opaque as they might have liked.

"Not skating ice, certainly?" Laurie prodded cautiously with the boot of his toe.

"Just as well we don't have our skates, then. Come on, Teddy." Jo marched out onto the ice. Five steps in, she turned and grinned. "Solid as the Parnassus ballroom. Come on."

Laurie cast his eyes up to the cerulean sky, and followed. Jo continued on, daring him with each step.

"Jo, you do remember when Amy..."

"Amy and I were fighting that day. You're not fighting me, are you?"

"As if I would!" She slowed and allowed him to catch up. "What's going on with you today, Jo? I haven't seen you like this in... twenty-five years! Where's the sensible and respected mother, advisor, author?"

"Teddy." She turned and caught his shoulders. "I just took the diary of a woman who nursed soldiers during the Civil War, who witnessed terrible wounds and terrible battles, and lived inside that diary for months while I turned it into a book that is her memorial. I need sunshine. I need to feel alive. I need frivolity as my younger self could never understand."

Laurie looked into her eyes, as intense as he had ever seen them. "Carry on, MacDuff." She nodded, and began to take a different path toward the shore of the pond, exploring the frozen eddies with her boot-tips as she went. Suddenly she exclaimed, and went down on her knees.

"No, no, I'm not hurt," she said impatiently to Laurie's grey glove at her shoulder. "But do you see that?"

Laurie knelt as well and looked into the ice. "By Jove! Is that--"

She nodded. "It looks like it."

"It'll be gone when the ice melts."

"I think we should dig it out."

"But --"

"Don't you think Amy would like it back?"

Laurie sighed. "And what, pray tell, do we have that can break through solid ice, oh Mentor?"

"Stop being such an old grandpa, Teddy. Let's take that pointed rock there, and a couple of maple branches... there we go."

Presently, there was an impressive gouge in the ice above their find... as well as some even more impressive cracks.

"Stop eyeing those cracks, and get this thing out before they get bigger," Jo ordered. Together, they thrust the branches through the ice under the small golden object, which promptly flew up into the air and over Laurie's head.

"Confound it!"

"Hush you, I found it. Take it, you have trouser pockets."

"Better; a watch pocket." He put it carefully away, suddenly unaware of the icy wind cutting through his open coat.

The ice creaked ominously. They looked at each other and ran, joyfully, for the shore, each tripping on the whorls at the edge and landing in ignominious heaps in the snowbanks, laughing uproariously.

Laurie, unencumbered by skirts, managed to right himself first, lending a hand to his best friend, who was still laughing.

"Plague take it, the sun's in my eyes." She shaded them, and looked out. "Goodness, that's nearly down. However long have we been out?"

"Longer than we intended." They laughed. "Better be getting back."

It was a long and wet walk, and Jo found herself wondering more than once why, if youthful energy (and insanity) had to descend upon her, why had it deserted her while walking uphill back to Plumtree and Parnassus?

The bedraggled pair were met half-way to Plumtree by Fritz and Amy, both with understanding and amused smiles. "As long as you're all right," Amy said cheerfully, "I don't want to hear excuses, at least until we've all had cocoa. Rob's made some."

Fritz put an arm around Jo and pulled her close, and the sisters and their husbands were soon ensconced in front of a fire. Rob and Ted sat close by, grinning at each other.

"Good afternoon?" Fritz asked.

"Just what I needed," Jo admitted. "Thank you all for sending Laurie after me. Oh--" she turned to Laurie. "Show them what we found."

He pulled the small golden object from his watch pocket. Amy's mouth fell open. "That's..."

"Yes."

"Bess will be so happy; she always felt guilty for losing it."

"Well, when she emerges from her studio and her vortex, we will have to tell her."

Amy took the small locket from Laurie, unfastened the gold chain from her neck, strung the locket on the chain, and refastened it. Only then did she open the locket to inspect the waterstained portrait inside.

"We thought we would lose her, when this was done."

"And now she's strong enough to work in marble."

The room was silent.

"Marmar, can we have supper now?" Ted asked plaintively. "We warmed it again when we saw you coming back, but it's probably gotten cold now."

Jo laughed and pulled her youngest close. "Even a cold supper would be ambrosia, right now. Let's eat."

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Caladria for the adorable request, and to my last-minute beta reader hl for quick response!


End file.
